Maindrian Pace

It's nice to have a friend with a lathe. It's nicer when he knows how to use it. Its nicer still when he is an ex Hollywood movie model and prop maker, with a list of props that you have seen, like parts of the spinner cars from Blade Runner, the deep sea submersible from Titanic, and countless airplanes and dystopian future apocalypse vehicles. It took him like 8 minutes to turn the Torq-Thrust wheels down.

Yes it is, PM me for info.

A good running 170 was sort of spunky in it's day when everything was slow, especially compared to a 144. My wagon had one of those in it when I bought it, the 0-60 and the 1/4 mile were both the same numbers.

There's a lot going on in that grille, lots of scratch building with strips of styrene, or 3D printing could be the simpler approach with a better outcome if you're not into involved carving and filing away at fussy little bits.

Chris, Yes, the Comet roof was trimmed to fit up to the Ranchero bed trim at the rear of the roof. The Ranchero doors are the same and they would have worked, I used the Comet doors to get the door trim like on the real one. It was an accident that it came out to be the same basic colors as the real trucklet. I used super glue to join the two plastics.

Very clever body mods. I drove a '61 Ranchero with a '61 Comet front clip, doors, dash, and drivetrain in high school back in the '80s that I built from mostly free cast-off junk. I didn't realize at the time that I was building a ute! I built a model of it around the same time. The car is long gone, but I still have the model. It looks like you are getting the proportions just right, though it looks like you may have taken just a tiny bit too much rear overhang off, maybe 1mm. You will have to scratch build the grille and single headlights, and I think your front bumper has a wider license plate recess.

Grill sunk in to a more stock position, bottom of original Aurora oil pan cut off and glued to the Monogram pan, firewall final fitted. Still have to turn down the wheels to fit the tires, then it will come together quickly.

Super sano!

Mike, I will do something with the headlights and the taillights, which are just as bad. I doubt I'll resin cast any of this stuff, though Greg did ask me if I wanted to. I think we'd sell, what, two? I am going to push the grille in a bit, but I'm not getting too carried away with accurizing this car - it's got a lot of problems character; the doors are too long and the C pillars are too thick, which makes the 1/4 windows too small, the rear COMET pontoons on the 1/4 panels go down hill when they should go straight back, and fixing that would mean raising the rear bumper/grille to match the new location, it has no cowl air vent detail, etc, and this is really just a quickie slump buster so I don't want to get too carried away - though I'm already doing more than I planned, so so much for that. Thanks Nigel. I haven't tried a 1:43 kit yet, but I do like to punish myself sometimes so a 1:72 is on the bench for when I feel like going blind. Funny you should mention that. I remember you telling me a few years back that there are no 1:32 scale small block Ford V8s out there, which was kind of a bummer. But maybe there are? 1:32 is a great way to use up all those comically underscale bits and pieces that have been included in various 1:25 kits over the decades, and I'm sure we can all name a few. Above we have a pair of the weird little Cobra valve covers from the Munsters Coach, with a normal sized 1:25 Ford Windsor valve cover for scale, an undersize parts box hypo air cleaner from some sort of Mustang kit, and the tiny little under dash A/C unit from the MPC '65-'69 Mustang kits. Way too small for 1:25, but look how nice it looks under the 1:32 dash. The firewall is a cut down 1:25 parts box piece, and the interior tub was shortened up front to accommodate it. As for the engine, I cut it out of the original chassis, cut the trans off, cut the oil pan off, and shortened the block because it was a little too long for the Munsters valve covers. I cut down a parts box intake, spaced the valve covers up a few thousandths with some Evergreen sheet, and voilà, a 1:32-ish small block Ford. 3d printing may be a better way to get an accurate engine, which I'll look into in the future. I'll add some shock towers and braces, radiator, and a battery - all available in unintentional 1:32 scale. I think the problem solving is my favorite aspect of working in this scale.

Bodywork almost completed, nasty primer bleed through on that red plastic. Interior patched back together, windows test fitted. Still undecided on the color combo. Aurora molded the optional vinyl top trim below the rear window, so it may get a vinyl top but not sure if that will clash with the scooped hood or the American wheels.

Flattened the hood, start of the scoops.

Superior in every way, one of my favorite '60s cars, bar none. The color is a convincing stand-in for Rangoon Red.

Much modified Aurora/Monogram Mustang chassis that Casey sent me, rear end narrowed a bit to make room for the widened rear tires. More body repairs, re-shaped front and rear wheel openings, adjusted wheelbase, stance almost finalized.